Integration · Google Drive
Back up email to Google Drive — automatically.
Forward any email to your private InboxBucket address and the original .eml lands in a folder in your own Google Drive — headers, body, and attachments intact. Your archive, in your Drive, owned by you.
Free plan available · No credit card required
- From:
- Acme Billing <[email protected]>
- To:
- [email protected]
- Subject:
- Invoice #4471 — June services
- Files:
- invoice-4471.pdf
/InboxBucket/2026/07/0713__invoice-4471__acme-billing.eml
✓ stored · 84 KB · original MIME
Why back up to Drive
A copy that outlives the account.
Accounts get locked
A flagged login or a policy change can lock your mailbox — and every receipt and contract inside it. A backup sitting in Drive is a copy that problem can't reach.
Files you can actually open
Not a stale MBOX dump you'll fight to import. Each email is one .eml in your Drive, browsable and searchable like any other file.
It runs by itself
Set one forwarding rule and new mail archives itself from then on — no quarterly export to remember, no software to keep running on your laptop.
How it works
Three steps, then it runs itself.
Connect Google Drive
Sign in with Google and approve one permission: a folder InboxBucket creates in your Drive. That's the narrowest access Google offers — nothing else in your Drive is visible to us.
Get your address
You receive a private inbound address that exists only to receive your mail:
[email protected]Forward anything
Forward one email by hand, or set an auto-forward rule so every message backs itself up. Seconds later, the original .eml is sitting in your Drive.
The access we ask for
One folder. Nothing else.
InboxBucket asks Google for a single permission: to create and manage its own folder in your Drive. That's the narrowest access Google offers. It cannot see, read, or touch anything else — your documents, photos, and existing files stay invisible to us.
We're the pipe, not the vault. Mail passes through us only long enough to reach your Drive; what stays behind is the metadata that powers your dashboard — sender, subject, date, status — never your messages. Revoke access whenever you like from your Google Account, and the files already written stay exactly where they are.
- Creates and manages one InboxBucket folder
- No access to your other files, folders, or photos
- No reading, editing, or deleting anything we didn't create
- Revocable anytime — your archived .eml files remain
What lands in your Drive
Organized, dated, and yours.
InboxBucket files each message into a dated folder tree inside the folder it created, named so you can find anything at a glance. Each file is a complete .eml — the original message, not a rendering or an export.
A note on storage: Drive files share your Google account's 15 GB free quota with Gmail and Photos. For a large archive, use a Workspace account with more room — or send the backup to OneDrive, Dropbox, or S3 instead. Your archive, your choice of shelf.
Google Drive/
└── InboxBucket/
└── 2026/
└── 07/
├── 0713__invoice-4471__acme-billing.eml
├── 0711__signed-contract__legal.eml
└── 0708__flight-receipt__airline.emlThe details
Built like a backup should be.
The original message, byte for byte
Every email lands as a .eml file — the raw RFC 822 message with headers, body, and attachments intact. It opens in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, or any text editor, today or in twenty years.
Attachments arrive whole
Large files are streamed to Drive in chunks, so the 40 MB signed contract lands intact, together with the message it came with — no provider size cap in your way.
Forward it twice, stored once
Mail servers retry and people double-forward. We deduplicate on Message-ID, so the same email is written to your Drive exactly once, however often it arrives.
You decide who gets archived
A per-sender allowlist means only senders you've approved reach your Drive. A scraped address won't fill your storage with spam.
Nothing fails silently
A failed upload — an expired token, a Drive outage — queues, retries, and stays visible in your dashboard until it lands. If the connection needs re-authorizing, we tell you plainly.
Searchable from day one
Sender, subject, date, and delivery status are indexed for every message, so you can find any archived email without digging through Drive folders.
Using Gmail?
The step-by-step for forwarding Gmail into your Drive — including filters to archive only what matters — is in our guide.
FAQ
Google Drive backup, answered.
Where are my emails stored?
In your own Google Drive. InboxBucket passes each message through only long enough to parse and deliver it, then writes the original .eml to the folder it created in your Drive. The archived copy lives in your account, not ours — we keep only the metadata (sender, subject, date, status) that powers your searchable dashboard.
What Google Drive permissions does InboxBucket need?
Just one: permission to create and manage its own folder. That is Google's most limited Drive access — InboxBucket cannot see, read, or touch anything else in your Drive. Your existing documents, photos, and files stay invisible to us. You can revoke access anytime from your Google Account security settings, and the files already written stay right where they are.
Does backing up email to Google Drive use my storage quota?
Yes. Files in Google Drive share your Google account's 15 GB free quota with Gmail and Google Photos, so a large archive can fill it. If you're backing up years of mail, point InboxBucket at a Google Workspace account with more room, a second Google account, or switch the destination to OneDrive, Dropbox, or S3 instead.
How do I back up Gmail to Google Drive automatically?
Connect Google Drive, then add your InboxBucket address as a forwarding address in Gmail (Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP) and confirm it. From then on, matching mail is archived to your Drive automatically. The full walkthrough, including Gmail filters, is in our guide on backing up Gmail to Google Drive.
What format are the backups in?
Every email is stored as a .eml file — the standard RFC 822 message exactly as it arrived, with headers, body, and attachments in one portable file. No proprietary format, no lock-in, and nothing to export later; it opens in any mail client or text editor.
Is Google Drive email backup free?
Yes. The Free plan archives 100 emails a month, with one inbound address and one storage connection, plus full-fidelity .eml backup and searchable history — enough to back up your most important mailbox to Google Drive. The allowance resets on the 1st. The Lifetime plan is a one-time $79 payment with unlimited archived emails, addresses, and storage connections, no subscription.
Can I control which emails are archived to Drive?
Yes. Forward individual messages by hand, or set filters in Gmail or Outlook so only the mail you choose is forwarded — receipts, contracts, specific senders. A per-sender allowlist adds a second layer: only approved senders are ever written to your Drive.
Free plan · No credit card
Put your email in your own Drive.
Connect Google Drive, get your address, and the next email you forward is saved to a folder you own.
Connect Google Drive